Suhyeon Lee | Drowning into plastics: Data Visualization of Plastic Pollution

 
According to a study by 2050 the number of plastic waste in the ocean will outnumber number of fish in the ocean. Additionally, in the article “When Will We Hit Peak Garbage?” the prediction from World Bank report with various experts’ opinions concerning garbage peak is well described. In between 2075 to 2100, the overflowing landfill will hit the peak. There wouldn’t be any place to landfill mismanaged wastes(meaning not properly recycled) anymore, which means more wastes will possibly throw away into the ocean and left over all around the ground.
Most of the plastics are non-biodegradable will result in the plastic lasting for more than hundreds years. And all these mismanaged plastics over years will be broken down into micro plastic pieces, which will disperse into our ecosystems. These unnoticeable micro plastics are consumed directly by animals and plants that at the end can be found in our body. Therefore, all the plastics that we mismanaged turn into micro plastics over time and come back to threaten our daily meal, diet, and health as well as disrupt our leisure and work by interfering travel destination and food choices and changing industrial focuses on plastic wastes problems, .
How the micro plastics are over dominating the ocean and the frightening outcomes that we will encounter in the near future is described in the book called Plastic Ocean: How a Sea Captain’s Chance by Moore, Charles, and Cassandra Phillips, Captain Moore. The author narrates this book through his voyage to The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” where he brings up the conclusion of his research that shows plastic debris outweighs the zooplankton in the ocean. And he also talks about his anxiety towards this issue that not a lot of people realizes.
As purpose of this project is to make people realize about plastic pollution, this project will present a data visualization of plastic waste by each continent over 15 years of period, 2010 to 2025. Data visualization is using gathered data to describe in a visual content to help people easily see the concept and catch the message without going reading over tonnes of numbers and words. This data visualization project will use specific data from Our World in Data. With the data sets and information gathered from researches, this project will include a clear art installation and interactions where people will quickly see the severity and feel the urgency towards plastic pollution.
In addition to conveying the message of accumulation of plastic wastes, this project will make users feel scared, guilty, and motivated. As the message of the project is: earth is drowning into plastic wastes, users will come away feeling scared and guilty but also motivated. Users should feel scared or afraid about the near future of plastic wastes threatening our environment, guilty of what they have done, and finally motivated to take a step in reducing plastic wastes.
Everyone uses plastic every day without realizing its severe consequences that will bring into our life. My project is not to make people feel helpless but encouraged. Everyone who uses disposable plastics without noticing those consequences should reconsider about plastic products and what is it like to live sustainable. And they should now know what plastic pollution is and its consequences. Therefore, it is important for us to learn the fact that plastic wastes brings an uncontrollable pollution problem that we already went too far and unless we stop using them right now the plastic wastes will be keep on accumulating and continually threaten our lives.